


Fractured Eyes

by Beauty_In_Her_Darkness



Series: Batfamily: League of Assassins [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Batfamily Reverse, Bruce Wayne is the Demon's Head, Damian Wayne is the Oldest and Dick Grayson is the Youngest, Damian Wayne-centric, Dark, Dark Batfamily (DCU), Dick Grayson is a Talon, League of Assassins Batfamily, League of Assassins Damian Wayne, Protective Damian Wayne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:48:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28374174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beauty_In_Her_Darkness/pseuds/Beauty_In_Her_Darkness
Summary: Damian al Ghul-Wayne isn't expecting anything interesting to happen when he visits the Court of Owls on his father, the Demon's Head's, orders, but a Talon-in-training with bright blue eyes and more natural skill than anyone he's ever met quickly proves him wrong.Basically: What happens to Damian and Dick in a world where Bruce Wayne accepted Ra's al Ghul's offer and became the leader of the League of Assassins?
Relationships: Batfamily Members & Damian Wayne, Cassandra Cain & Damian Wayne, Damian Wayne & Jonathan Kent, Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne, implied Damian Wayne/Jonathan Kent
Series: Batfamily: League of Assassins [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2078148
Comments: 33
Kudos: 268
Collections: Top 10%





	1. The Court of Owls

Damian’s lip curled. Even though he’d grown up as the spoiled heir to the League of Assassins and had never wanted for a thing in his life, everything about the Court of Owls struck him as _excessive_. The League had been forced to work closely with the Court years before, but Damian had been off on his own mission in Asia during that time and had been mostly spared the full Court treatment. Now, though...now he understood why his father was so determined to avoid them as much as possible even though their goals often seemed to overlap.

“Are you sure that you would not be more comfortable staying with the Court? We would be more than happy to host you during your stay in Gotham. Having the heir to the Demon’s Head here is quite the honor,” the male sycophant in the owl mask to his left said, not to be confused with the male sycophant in the owl mask to his right.

Damian suppressed a sigh. Why couldn’t the owls just take off the stupid masks? He could understand a dress code of some sort to reassure their fragile egos that they were part of the Court, but there was something about those blank masks with their dead eyes that unnerved him. Didn’t it bother them that they had no individuality? Or were they so content with their positions in the Court that they thought it a worthwhile sacrifice?

And what was the _point_ of all this? When he’d flown half way around the world to oversee the assassination of some upstart heroes who were interfering in the League’s business, he’d expected to be in his armor and stalking his prey from rooftops, not dressed in his finest tux and sitting in the Court of Owl’s fancy underground club, modeled after 1920’s speakeasies. He’d been ushered to a seat, served all sorts of obnoxiously elite food and drink, and only half listened to the owls who were supposedly supposed to help him oversee the assassination but seemed more interested in sucking up to him.

It was much more interesting to peer past them and watch the bar and dancefloor behind them and track the owls by their dress and see what factions and alliances they had. Damian had already pinpointed ten different factions, two double agents, and three owls who clearly were plotting something together. If the Grandmaster had deigned to greet him himself, Damian might have been inclined to warn him as a professional courtesy, but since he hadn’t, he felt more inclined to thrust a dagger into his eye.

“Like I already said, Wayne Manor will more than suffice,” Damian said, rolling his wrist to watch the champagne slosh in its flute. He didn’t really think they’d poison him (if they wanted him dead, they’d unleash their undead Talons on him), but it was an old habit to check if there was any leftover residue at the bottom or if its color changed under the different angles of light.

“Besides, I don’t plan to be in Gotham long,” Damian added when he saw the way the man on his left’s body leaned forward, indicating that he was getting ready to speak. “I’m only here for today and tomorrow to make sure your Talons and my assassins don't kill each other before the mission is over.”

They both bowed their head, the one on his left nearly spilling half his drink in his lap as he did so. He was clearly new to be so sloppy with his body language. A hot flash of anger shot through him, but Damian disguised it with a quick sip of the champagne. It was disgustingly old and expensive. They really were sparing no expense to please him. They might have succeeded if it was because they actually feared him and not his father. Years after Bruce had become the Demon’s Head, they were still hoping to seduce the lost Prince of Gotham back home. It was a fool’s hope.

Damian cast a quick glance behind him. Cassandra was blatantly wearing her black and gold armor and hood, though all of her knives were concealed in clever flaps and sheaths. He couldn’t see her face because of her mask, but he’d known his sister long enough to know that though she wasn’t bored, she was growing impatient. Her guard was up constantly as she scanned the room for threats, but there was nothing but hordes of socialite owls and the faint sounds of minimalist classical music that rich people seemed to favor. The sooner they got on with their mission, the less likely it was that he would upset his favorite sibling.

Damian set his flute down and stood up, buttoning back up his suit’s jacket. The two owls eagerly leapt to their feet, the left one spilling a little champagne on his pants. As he surreptitiously wiped at it with a napkin, Damian said coolly, “I think we’ve spent more than enough time here. Where is the Grandmaster?”

“The Grandmaster? My Lord, the Grandmaster plans to meet with you tonight, before we send out our operatives,” the right owl said, a hint of fear coloring his voice.

Damian felt Cassandra slide into place behind him. He wondered if they thought it was strange that her armor and weapons resembled their Talons. He could tell the petite teenager certainly intimidated them. Rumors of David Cain and Lady Shiva’s fearsome daughter becoming the Demon Head’s favored agent had spread far and wide in their underground society, but no one had lived to tell the tale of how well Cassandra Cain actually fought. It was all speculation and guesswork, but him bringing her as his only backup certainly said a lot about both of their abilities. The Court may be the League’s ally, but they were not friends.

“I’m Damian al Ghul-Wayne, heir to the League of Assassins and one of Gotham’s oldest families. Either I speak with the Grandmaster or I take my assassins and leave right now,” he threatened, standing as tall and proud as he’d his father, his hands folded behind his back, resting on the hidden sheath at the small of his back.

“My lord, the Grandmaster is training the Talons right now. He won’t take kindly to being disturbed.” Damian stared at him flatly. The owl flinched and said weakly, “Right this way, my lord.”

The two owls walked a pace in front of him and he could feel Cassandra’ reassuring presence behind him. The halls of the Court’s compound were just as richly decorated as their speakeasy had been. Portrait after portrait of some of Gotham’s most famous families and citizens lined the walls, most of them wearing the owl masks of their era. Damian scowled openly. He’d barely been in Gotham an hour and he already wanted to leave. The compound was a tomb compared to the natural beauty of Al Ghul Island.

“My lord, the Grandmaster might not want to receive you. He doesn’t allow anything to interrupt the Talons’ training.”

Damian clenched his jaw. He was sick of owls. “If your Grandmaster knows what’s good for him, he won’t make that same mistake with me.”

A light hand squeezed his arm. “Settle down, big brother.”

Damian sucked in another breath. Bruce should have sent Timothy. He was the one who knew how to keep his cool during negotiations. He would have had the patience to wait for the Grandmaster, though Damian was clear headed enough to admit that as the League’s coordinator and strategist, it would be foolish to send him into the field. Damian had always been better suited to lead and fight with the League than to treat with their allies, though. Dealing with outsiders was just uncomfortable.

“Since when does the Grandmaster take a personal interest in the training of Talons? It seems a menial task for one of his ranking,” Damian said to their backs.

The owls took a sharp right and punched a passcode into a keypad that Damian easily recognized. These owls really were too careless. _They must be related to someone high in the Court if they were given this assignment,_ Damian realized. _There’s no way they got it with their own merits._

The owls pulled open the door and held it open for him. “It is a recent development, my lord. He’s only done it for this new batch of recruits. See for yourself, my lord.”

Damian eyed them warily, but he could see nothing suspicious about them not entering first. He stepped through the doorway and found himself on a mezzanine lounge over the training floor. Dozens of owls as elegantly dressed as the ones in the speakeasy had been crowded at the rails, eagerly peering down at the trainees.

Cassandra nodded at him. She didn’t see anything suspicious either. The owls were so engrossed that they didn’t even notice that the heir to the League was right behind them. The only thing that was bothering him was that he couldn’t spot the Grandmaster.

He turned back to the owls. “Where is he?” he growled.

“Down below, my lord,” one stammered out. The other looked like he was shaking and trying very hard to act like he wasn’t.

Damian narrowed his eyes. “Then why did you take me _here_ and not down _there_?”

Now they were both quivering. “My lord, they will take a break soon and then you will have the chance to speak to the Grandmaster. You may watch the training until then, or we can procure you a seat—”

Damian didn’t wait for him to finish before storming over to the railing of the mezzanine, owls parting and bowing before him. Damian ignored them, confident that Cassandra was watching his back.

A few fully fledged Talons lurked at the edges of the training yard, all wearing bandoliers of knives and their full uniforms, hiding the unnatural gold of their eyes behind the glassy lenses of the Talon hood. Only one wasn’t wearing a hood: William Cobb, the Grandmaster’s favored assassin and the leader of the Talons. He prowled at the other end of the room, his eerie eyes flicking around as he barked out sharp orders at the recruit and trainer in the center of the yard, his stride unfaltering.

The trainers were obviously new Talons, the ones who weren’t ready for missions outside the Court’s walls yet. Though they checked their strength and speed, they still moved _differently_. Their reflexes were just a little too good to belong to a regular human. Not even his father or Cassandra could move like that, and they were the best fighters he knew, aside from himself. The most unnerving thing about them was how durable they were. Even though the recruits were landing a respectable number of hits on their Talon trainers, the Talons didn’t flinch. The recruits just didn’t have the strength and training to actually hurt their trainers.

Damian couldn’t spot the Grandmaster, but he could see the hint of a dais underneath the mezzanine. No one could accuse the man of being a fool; he’d chosen the most secure spot in the room, and the one with the best view of the recruits.

“Look, look,” a female owl squealed, grabbing the arm of the owl next to her and pointing excitedly. Appreciative murmurs and delighted gasps sounded throughout the mezzanine. Many of the owls leaned over the railing, their jewelry shining blindingly under the lights.

“Damian, in the center,” Cassandra murmured, her voice a soft breeze in his ear.

Damian cast his gaze towards the center. At first glance, he’d assumed that all of the recruits were teenagers or young adults, the Court’s prefered age for their Talons, but the trainee at the center of the training yard was at least two feet shorter than the man he was facing off against and one hundred pounds lighter. Though the boy was too far away and moving too fast for him to really tell, Damian would guess he was about ten or eleven.

“Interesting,” Damian murmured, resting his hand lightly on the railing. Cass hummed in agreement.

The boy was dressed in a plain brown unitard, similar to the white and black one Damian himself had worn while training in the League as a child. He wasn’t armed, not even with one of the Court’s signature knives, but the trainer was. Damian’s eyebrows shot up as he realized how _fast_ the boy’s trainer was moving. A quick glance at the pair to the boy’s left confirmed it: they were going harder on the boy.

It didn’t seem to matter that the Talon had a knife and was allowed to use his full speed; he couldn’t so much as graze the boy. The boy duck and spun and flipped, as elegant and graceful as a dancer. There was no panic or hesitation. This boy knew what he was doing. Damian leaned forward, intrigued. Who was this boy that could hold his own against a Talon?

Damian looked up. Though the Talons were all paying attention to multiple recruits, he saw the slight tilt of their heads. They were peeking at the boy and then returning their attention to the other recruits before a superior could berate them. Not that Cobb seemed to notice their behavior. No, he only had eyes for the boy in the center.

Damian couldn’t blame him. It was fascinating to watch him. The Talon grew steadily more and more frustrated as the little boy continued to stay out of reach of his knife and limbs. The boy didn’t even seem to be trying to hit the Talon. In fact, as the fight dragged on and the Talon grew sloppy, the boy started to toy with his trainer. He cartwheeled and somersaulted, sometimes even adding little performance touches like waiting till the last second to move out of the way of the knife, much to the delight of his audience. The owls were completely taken with their little recruit and continually cheered and gossiped about him, fantasizing about when they would be able to send him into the field.

“Very good,” Cass whispered, her mask hiding her expression. Damian grunted noncommittally. Why wasn’t the boy attacking?

“Stop toying with him!” Cobb shouted, glaring fiercely at the boy. “Finish it already!”

That seemed to be some unspoken command to end the other fights. All of the Talons but the one fighting the dark-haired boy melted away, leaving the bruised and bloody recruits to limp off to the sides on their own. They glared hatefully at the boy, their half-golden eyes shining reflectively, like an animals’.

The Talon took a step back. He spun his knife around dramatically, slicing the air in front of him. It reminded Damian of Jason. His little brother had always leaned into the dramatics of fighting.

The boy recruit clenched his jaw. A drop of sweat slid down his temple, tracing a path along the curve of his cheek and jaw before falling to the floor. He slid into a low crouch, unflinching even as the Talon drew a second knife. Damian blinked in surprise as he realized that there wasn’t so much as a nick in the boy’s suit. Cobb hadn’t been exaggerating: this boy truly was toying with a _Talon_.

_Who are you?_

“Do it, boy,” Cobb growled, baring his teeth at the recruit. _“Do it.”_

The boy trembled, one quick shudder, but didn’t move otherwise. The owls began to murmur and shift, their voices rising in a slow crescendo.

Cobb slammed his fist against the wall. _“Gray Son!”_

The boy shot off like a bullet. The Talon reversed his grip on the knives and swiped, but the boy was ready. He dropped back into a crouch, his hands braced on the ground, and swept out the Talon’s legs. The Talon went down hard, though he kept his grip on the knives. The boy backflipped away neatly as the Talon tried to kick him, but he couldn’t get up without turning his back on the boy.

The Talon snarled and tried to backbend up to keep the boy in sight, but unlike his mentee, he clearly wasn’t used to moving that way. In the blink of an eye, the boy had swept out his arms from under him, stunned him with an elbow to the head, and snatched the knives from his hands.

The Talon tossed up his arms to guard his face, but he was too late. Nothing but God himself could have stopped the boy from driving both of the daggers through the shiny lenses of his hood and into his eyes below.

The Talon didn’t even get a chance to cry out.

Silence reigned as the boy climbed off the body of the Talon, his hair significantly more ruffled, but otherwise no worse for wear. Cassandra and Damian turned to each other, too stunned to remember that they shouldn’t show such weakness in the den of the owls. That skinny little boy had taken a Talon down in under a minute and judging by how Cobb and the owls were acting, this was a regular occurrence. No, the _expected outcome._ The Court really had found their Gray Son.

Wild applause broke the silence. The owls had gone mad. They clapped and cheered and shouted, leaning over the railing and calling out to the Gray Son. He looked up at them curiously, like he didn’t understand what they were doing. Maybe he didn’t. The training process of Talons was designed to strip them of individuality. By the time they were done with him, he’d be nothing more than a puppet of the Court.

Damian felt a chill go through him as the boy’s gaze narrowed in on him, noticing that there was one person on the mezzanine who didn’t wear an owl mask. With his head tilted up and the lights shining down on him like a spotlight, there was no mistaking it: the Gray Son was truly a child, only about eight or nine years old, a full decade younger than the Court’s normal recruits.

All of the noise and waving and cheering seemed to melt away. There was just him and the Gray Son and his achingly young face that still had hints of baby fat. Damian logically knew that there was no way the kid knew who he was. He was only staring because it had been a long time since he’d seen a person without an owl mask or Talon hood on. Still, there was something _knowing_ in the boy’s brilliant blue eyes, as bright as the skies above Al Ghul Island.

_Eyes like those don’t belong underground,_ a traitorous voice whispered inside Damian’s head.

“My lord, we can take you to see the Grandmaster now,” one of his annoying guides said.

Damian jerked his head around automatically, focusing on the man speaking to him. Cass shifted slightly, picking up on how off kilter he still was.

“Of course,” Damian forced the words out. “Lead the way.”

Damian peeked back down into the training room, but the only sign that the boy had ever been there was the pool of blood cooling in the center of the floor.

…

Damian had met the Grandmaster of the Court of Owls several times and had always come away with the impression that the man was playing with fire. He controlled the strongest branch of the Parliament of Owls and spearheaded the Talon program for the entire Parliament yet was dumb enough to trust the Talons. Loyalty was earned in the League. It was manufactured in the Court.

“Keep your head clear,” Cassandra murmured as they followed their guides down a staircase to the training room floor, confirming his suspicion that the Grandmaster had been watching from underneath the mezzanine.

Damian nodded tersely, unable to respond without anyone overhearing. He was gratefully that she had agreed to be his backup. Her ability to read body language, his especially, was beyond useful.

They stepped onto the floor of the training room and turned around to face the dais. The Grandmaster was lounging on a throne-like chair, dressed in the same hood, mask, and suit that he always was. Cobb stood to his right and another Talon to his left, flanking their liege. A few owls stood nearby or in front of the Grandmaster. If Damian had to guess they were his attendants and advisors. The Grandmaster waved them all away impatiently when he spotted them.

The owls bowed respectfully to the Grandmaster and Cassandra inclined her head as the Grandmaster spread out his arms welcomingly. “My friends from the League of Shadows! Damian al Ghul-Wayne, heir to the Demon’s Head, and that must be the infamous Cassandra Cain behind you. Just the two of you? I was rather hoping young Mr. Drake would come.”

Damian rested the urge to clench his jaw. The Court had always been bitter that Bruce had taken Timothy before he became old enough for them to recruit. After all, he was an heir to one of Gotham’s old and rich families, and a genius to boot. Losing him to the League had been a major blow.

“Just Cain and I,” Damian said evenly. He couldn’t afford to insult a man of his status.

The Grandmaster sighed dramatically as an attendant handed him a flute of champagne, identical to the one Damian had been given upstairs. “A shame. Tell Mr. Drake that he’s welcome any time. Gotham will always take him back. But where are my manners? Elliot, grab a seat for Lord Damian,” he ordered one of the attendants.

Elliot procured a chair seemingly out of nowhere and placed it on the dais across from the Grandmaster’s throne. Damian sat down, his back ramrod straight. Cassandra stood directly behind him, no doubt sizing up Cobb the same way he was her.

“You saw the Talons’ training, yes?” he asked. Damian nodded curtly. “Well, what did you think? A man of your skill and training must take away more from watching than I do.”

“They were very impressive,” Damian said automatically. How could he ask about the boy without offending him? The Grandmaster clearly hadn’t expected Damian to watch the recruits train and he hadn’t told the League about the boy, so he clearly had been keeping him somewhat of a secret.

The Grandmaster waved impatiently. “Of course they are, that's why they were chosen in the first place.”

Damian inclined his head in acknowledgement. “I find your Talons as effective as ever and your recruits handled themselves well. I would like to know more about the boy, though. The one Cobb called the Gray Son,” Damian said carefully, watching the Grandmaster closely.

The Grandmaster leaned back, his posture relaxed. Damian could almost picture the easy smile spreading across his face beneath the mask. “Magnificent, isn’t he? He’s Cobb’s great-grandson, the true Gray Son we have been waiting for. At the rate he’s learning, we’ll be able to transform him years before the other recruits. It’s getting hard to find Talons willing to fight him!”

The Grandmaster laughed and his owls followed suit. Cobb looked smug.

“Congratulations. Gaining a skilled soldier is always a cause for celebration,” Damian said, fighting to keep a scowl from spreading across his face. Damian preferred his soldiers _willing_.

“Thank you, Lord Damian. Speaking of soldiers, how are your siblings?” the Grandmaster asked, his voice as sweet as honey. “Timothy, Stephanie, and Jason. My, but it’s getting hard to track how many of you there are. I didn’t forget anyone, did I?”

Damian narrowed his eyes. “My siblings are fine, thank you for asking.”

When Damian didn’t offer anything else, the Grandmaster laughed again. “Ah, talking with you reminds me so much of when your father was young. He was just as serious and angry. Fine, we’ll dispense with the small talk. I assume you came to see me for a reason, Lord Damian. What is it?”

“I want to discuss tonight’s mission strategy before I send my assassins out into the field.”

The Grandmaster cocked his head, but there was no heat in his voice when he said, “That’s what Benjamin and Lucas are for, Lord Damian. I am not overseeing this mission myself.”

Damian had honestly forgotten his guides’ names until the Grandmaster said them. “I understand that, Grandmaster. However, Benjamin and Lucas are worthless,” he said bluntly. “I need fighters, not politicians.”

“I see.” The Grandmaster drummed his fingers consideringly on the arm of his throne. “Perhaps a Talon then. Ryman, would you?”

The hooded Talon to the Grandmaster’s left nodded.

“Excellent. Now that that’s sorted, is there anything else you need?” the Grandmaster asked, still calm.

Damian stared into the flat black eyes of the Grandmaster’s mask, his head held high. “I want to meet the Gray Son.”

The owls startled, some of them even flinched as if he had said something egregious. Cobb was outright glaring at him, his hand drifting towards the swords on his back. Damian felt the rush of air that meant that Cassandra was doing the same. Damian didn’t back down.

The Grandmaster laced his fingers together and rested them on his lap, never once looking away from Damian. “That’s an odd request for the son of the Demon’s Head to make,” he said casually, but Damian could read the tension in his figure. He’d struck a nerve.

“It is,” Damian acknowledged.

“I’m sure your father has told you about the... _immersive_ training we put our Talons through. We do not let our recruits speak to outsiders. Seeing your face without a mask is already more than enough to cause setbacks in the process.”

That was a bullshit excuse if Damian had ever heard one. Their Gray Son wouldn’t be so easily broken. They just didn’t want to let an al Ghul near their precious warrior.

“Nonetheless, my request stands,” Damian said. “Or is your _training_ so feeble that you can’t grant me five minutes?”

Cobb bared his teeth, murder in his eyes, but the Grandmaster didn’t react to the barb.

“In honor of our alliance with your father, we shall grant you three minutes with the Gray Son. Ryman, take Lord Damian to the boy,” the Grandmaster ordered. “Once they are done, the two of you can plan tonight’s mission.”

The Talon bowed. “Yes, Grandmaster.”

“Shouldn’t I be the one to supervise, Grandmaster?” Cobb asked in a tight voice.

“I have need of you elsewhere, Talon. Are these terms satisfactory, little lord?” the Grandmaster asked him, a mocking edge to his voice.

Damian stood and looked down upon his throne. “They are, _Grandmaster_.”

…

The Talon led him out of the training room and down a much more utilitarian hall. Damian guessed that he was now firmly in Talon territory, the dark underbelly to the crystal and gold of the higher levels.

Cassandra didn’t dare talk to him now that they were with a Talon instead of owls, but he could feel displeasure radiating off of her. He knew she’d report his behavior back to Father and he honestly couldn’t blame her. What was he doing risking upsetting the Grandmaster, one of the Court’s most formidable threats, just to speak to a boy he didn’t know for three measly minutes? Hell, he’d probably tell Father before Cassandra had a chance to.

The Talon pulled open a door and stormed inside, not even pausing to hold the door open for him. Damian glared at the back of Ryman’s head before stepping inside.

Damian didn’t even consider that even after defeating a Talon, the Court would make him keep training, but that was exactly what the Gray Son was doing. He was alone in a vast gym, pounding away at a punching bag. He’d wrapped his fingers and wrists securely, a luxury he hadn’t been allowed in combat. Sweat had dampened his black locks, but his breaths were steady. Controlled, even. His attention was so fixed that he didn’t even turn his head to acknowledge the three of them, but something about how his shoulders crept up, unconsciously tensing, convinced Damian that the boy knew they were there even if he didn’t show it.

“Your three minutes start now,” Ryman said, hanging back near the wall. Cassandra took up a similar position opposite him.

Damian stuck his hands into his pockets and strolled over to the boy, letting his footsteps sound clearly so as to not startle the boy. He’d learned a lot about how to approach an abused child after his father had taken Jason Todd back to Al Ghul Island with him a few years ago.

“What should I call you?” Damian asked, stopping about six feet in front of the boy’s punching bag, careful to keep himself in the boy's line of sight and to keep his posture relaxed and nonthreatening.

_Thud, thunk!_ The boy struck the bag in rapid succession before peering up at Damian, his eyes shining under the dark fringe of his hair. Damian couldn’t have read the boy’s expression if he tried. His face was as blank as the owl masks he was surrounded by.

“They call me the Gray Son,” the boy said, his voice a rasp. When was the last time they’d given him water?

Damian shoved that thought down. “Yes, they do, but I’m not one of them. What do you want me to call you?”

The boy stepped forward to stop the bag from swinging, his brows pulling together as he looked at Damian contemplatively. “It’s my name, you know. My last name. Grayson.”

Damian arched an eyebrow. “That doesn’t mean you have to like it.” Some of his siblings certainly didn’t like theirs.

The boy shrugged. “I go by Dick, but the Grandmaster won’t be happy if he hears you using it.”

Dick Grayson. No, Richard Grayson. He would have Timothy run a search on him as soon as he got away from prying eyes.

Damian’s lips quirked. “Probably best that I call you Grayson, then. I already upset the Grandmaster.”

“It couldn’t have been that bad if you’re still alive,” Dick said dismissively.

Despite the horrible implications of that statement, Dick’s unexpected bravery nearly coaxed a grin out of him, but he caught himself. Dick wouldn’t trust a grin from a stranger.

“Why are you the only one training here? Where are the other recruits?” Damian asked.

Dick’s expression flickered, his mouth shaping into a quick frown. _He was sad,_ Damian realized.

“They’re getting patched up right now. They’ll come here afterwards,” Dick said, the words sounding forced. He knew as well as Damian that with some of their injuries, it could be another few days before they could do anything again, but Damian certainly wasn't going to point that out. He didn’t want any of the lingering light to go out in his eyes.

It was strange that a Talon in training was compassionate enough to care about the other recruits, and was an optimist to boot. The boy couldn’t have been here terribly long if he hadn’t been stripped of his personality and emotions yet, but then who had been training him before?

“I’m Damian, by the way,” he said before the boy could return to the punching bag. “Damian—”

“Al Ghul-Wayne,” Dick finished. “I know.”

Damian blinked. “Someone told you I was here?” They normally kept their Talons and recruits in the dark unless they needed to know something for their missions.

Dick shook his head. “I heard Cobb talking about someone from the League of Shadows coming to the Court. The League wouldn’t let you watch me train unless you’re someone really important, someone they can’t say no to. And I’ve heard them complain about your family enough to connect the dots,” he added on noncommittally.

“A solid deduction,” Damian said, though the words felt inadequate. It was an impressive deduction, especially since Damian wasn’t wearing a single thing that marked him as a member of the League. He’s not sure he could have figured it out if he was Dick’s age and going through the brutal training to become a Talon.

Dick shrugged and turned back to the punching bag, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet. A normal child would have been worn out by now, but Dick looked like he could go another round and win.

“How old are you?” Damian couldn’t help but ask.

_Thud, thud, thud_. “I don’t know,” Dick said, unconcerned, his gaze not wavering from the bag. “Nine?”

“Nine,” Damian repeated faintly. He didn’t even want to think about why Dick didn’t actually know his age.

He’d been training at nine. Hell, he’d been training ever since he could stand, but something about seeing how _small_ a nine-year-old actually was caused his stomach to knot uncomfortably. He liked the boy’s style, the way he bounced and flipped and didn’t fight like anyone else Damian had ever seen. He liked how fearless Dick was, how even though he was basically alone with a famous assassin, he hardly changed his behavior at all. And most of all, Damian liked Dick’s eyes, which were young and old and bright and cold all at once.

_Is this what Father felt like when he found Timothy and Jason?_ Damian wondered, and then his stomach knotted for entirely different reasons.

“I was—” Damian began to say.

“Your three minutes are up, my lord,” Ryman interrupted, striding purposefully towards them, Cassandra a black and gold shadow behind him. “Gray Son, get back to training.”

Dick smirked and snapped a salute. “Sir, yes, sir.”

“Watch it,” Ryman said warningly. “I may not be Cobb or the Grandmaster, but I can still make your life hell.”

“Gee, I wonder what that would be like,” Dick murmured before executing a perfect spinning kick.

Ryman growled and started forward, his hand raised. Damian smoothly slid in between them and gave the Talon an expectant look.

“Well?” Damian demanded. “The mission starts in two hours. Is slapping an insolent brat more important than it?”

Damian was positive Ryman wanted to turn that blow on him. The Talon growled once more before stalking towards the door, not even checking to make sure Damian was following.

“Thank you,” Dick whispered, his voice unbearably small.

Damian inclined his head. “I hope we meet again, Grayson.”

Dick gave him a tentative smile. “I’d like that.”


	2. Chapter 2

Damian pulled his tie loose and slumped back against the cushioned limo seat, savoring the quiet and air conditioning. Cass was brushing her hair next to him, methodically stroking until it was as smooth and silky as a model’s. Honestly, she could pass for a model, especially with how dressed up she was at the moment in a sleek green dress and black blazer.

Both Cassandra and Damian would have been more comfortable wearing the loose tunics favored on Al Ghul Island, but they would have stood out in a city as American as Gotham if they had. They both loved staying at Wayne Manor, but staying at their family’s home did mean that they had to pretend to be the Prince of Gotham’s normal children to appease the paparazzi, and that meant they absolutely had to wear American clothing. They also had to endure reporters snapping pictures of them and begging for interviews whenever they stepped outside, but overall, it wasn’t that bad. They were heading to their private jet anyways, so it wasn’t like they’d have to pretend for much longer.

“You’re going to tell Bruce about him,” Cassandra said abruptly, setting her brush aside.

Damian frowned out the window. “Of course I am. The Court has been bragging about the Gray Son for years. Father will need to be updated on this development.”

“That’s not what I meant.” _And you know it_ went unsaid, floating accusingly in the narrow backseat of their limo.

Damian sighed, his breath fogging up the glass, further obscuring the already indistinct Gotham cityscape. “I can’t stop thinking about him, Cassandra. The Court is going to ruin him.”

“With training? You and I were trained. Are we ruined?” she asked, her dark eyes boring into him.

“Of course not, but the League and the Court are not the same,” Damian insisted, turning to face her. She looked unimpressed. He persisted, “He won’t just be an assassin. They’re going to make him a Talon, like his great-grandfather. It would be a waste.”

“It would,” she agreed. “And it's not our problem.”

“Like Timothy and Stephanie and Jason weren’t?” he challenged.

“No. They were unclaimed. Grayson belongs to the Court.”

Damian sighed and pressed his forehead against the cool glass of the window. “I have a feeling Father will say the same thing.”

“Then why ask?”

Damian clenched his jaw. He knew that Cassandra was only being practical. The Court wouldn’t part with Dick willingly and with him being kept in their main compound, the only way to rescue him would be for the League to wage all out war on the Court. Damian also knew he was right: Bruce likely wouldn’t agree to go to war for a boy he didn’t even know, even if he did seem to have a soft spot for troubled dark-haired boys. So if Bruce was just going to say no, why _was_ Damian even bothering to ask?

“Because I can’t forget his eyes,” Damian said softly.

The limo rolled to a stop. Damian didn’t give Cassandra a chance to respond. He climbed right out of the car and ordered the driver to load up his and her suitcase onto the jet before strikingly purposefully forward.

“My lord, the jet can leave whenever you’re ready,” the flight attendant standing at the base of the stairs that led into the jet said with a short bow.

“Start the preparations. I want to be back home as soon as possible,” Damian said as he neared the steps.

Damian’s head jerked up as he heard a sonic boom. There was a flash of red and blue in the sky and then a loud _wham_ as a figure smacked down hard onto the tarmac a few feet away. Cassandra had crouched down beside him, the poisonous green glow of Kryptonite emanating from the knife in her hand. A grin tugged at Damian’s lips.

“To what do I owe this pleasure, Kent?” Damian asked cheekily as Superboy glowered at him, a hint of red in his eyes.

“Did you really think that I wouldn’t hear about Damian Wayne coming to Gotham?” Jon Kent demanded, striding closer with fast, angry steps that made the ground tremble. Cassandra tensed, positioning her knife in front of them. Damian tucked one hand into his pocket casually, his fingers stroking his own piece of Kryptonite carefully.

Damian smirked. “Honestly, I expected to see you earlier. Losing your touch, Kent? I told you that working with the Justice League would only slow you down.”

Jon had filled out considerably since they had first met as teenagers, but his ruffled black hair and pouty murderous expression were the same.

“The League was alerted the second you set foot in the country.”

Damian arched an eyebrow at him. “And you only came now? I thought the son of the Demon’s Head would stir up a bigger reaction than that. Or is it possible they didn’t tell you until now because they know about our past?”

Jon stopped and tensed, the veins on his neck plainly visible. “We don’t have a _past_ ,” Jon sneered. “You’re just one of the dozens of criminals I’ve fought.”

God, Damian had missed seeing Superboy. It’d been months since he’d been to America and there really was nothing as thrilling as having one of the most dangerous people on the planet stalk towards him threateningly and know that he couldn’t do _anything_. Even the House of El thought twice about tangling with the League, and Superboy had learned the hard way years ago that Damian’s reputation wasn’t exaggerated.

“Cassandra, go ahead and take your seat. Kent and I have some things to discuss,” Damian said, not looking away from Superboy.

Cassandra shot him a very clear _you’re being an idiot and I don’t have the energy to argue with you_ look before retreating into the jet, keeping her knife between her and Jon the way he and Bruce taught her to.

Jon waited until she’d disappeared inside before saying, “What did that mayoral candidate do to piss off the League of Shadows so much that you put a hit on him?”

“Mayoral candidate? I’m not American, Jonathan. I don’t keep track of your politics,” Damian said dismissively.

Jon clenched his jaw. “Two of the most notorious assassins in the world show up in Gotham and a mayoral candidate is found dead in his home the next day. It’s pretty freaking easy to connect the dots there.”

“Assassins? Whoever could you be talking about? The Prince of Gotham’s son and a girl who legally doesn’t exist and you can’t prove does?” Damian asked, savoring the angry red gleam in Jon’s eyes. “We’ve done this dance a thousand times. You can accuse me as much as you’d like, but you don’t have a shred of evidence that would tie Cassandra or I or any member of my family to any illegal activity. Nothing that would hold up in a court of law, anyways.” Damian cocked his head, studying Jon curiously. “But you already knew this. So why are you here, Jonathan?”

Jon crossed his arms and glared, looking every bit like the petulant sixteen year old Damian had the honor of shanking with Kryptonite for the first time. “I’m here,” Jon bit out, “to tell you to stay out of Gotham. The Waynes lost their claim here when your father agreed to be Ra’s al Ghul’s heir.”

Damian barked a laugh. “Are you taking Gotham under your wing the way your father did Metropolis? I’ve never understood heroes’ obsession with adopting cities.”

Jon stared at him flatly. “I’m not joking, Damian. I may not be able to arrest you, but I can make your life hell in a thousand other ways.”

“I don’t doubt that you could,” Damian said somberly. “But before you threaten me any more, know that for every blow you strike at me or my family, I will gladly return sevenfold. I may go soft on you every now and then, Jonathan, but that won’t stop me from doing my job. Of course, this feud of ours is entirely of your making. I hold no animosity towards you.”

Jon looked at him as if he were crazy, which was not an uncommon occurrence for the two of them. “I’m a hero, Damian. You’re an assassin. We’re naturally opposed.”

“For being a big time hero now, you can still be really naive. Jonathan, I have never once targeted your friends, family, or teammates. The League stays out of Metropolis as much as possible out of respect for your family, and even though your secret identity is known to us, we’ve never once told anyone. We may have different goals, but we truly don’t overlap. In fact, the only time we see each other is when you do something like this,” Damian said, gesturing at the cracked tarmac where he’d slammed down.

Jon scoffed. “You’ve done it too.”

“Confronted you at an airport? No, I don’t think I’ve done that yet,” Damian said contemplatively.

Jon gave him a look identical to the one Cassandra had leveled at him minutes ago. “Stay out of Gotham, Damian,” he said finally, his feet lifting off the tarmac to hover above him. “Next time, it won’t just be a warning.”

Jon shot up into the sky, his body arching gracefully before he disappeared into Gotham’s rainclouds. Cassandra appeared at his elbow, her face somber.

Damian stared up at the sky. “Tt.”

…

Cassandra’s dark eyes followed him as they walked side by side on the covered balcony into the compound. She had slept effortlessly for nearly the full flight from Gotham to Al Ghul Island and smiled as they stepped off the jet, her face turned up towards the sky. As much as Damian had hated the Gotham weather, it had been even worse for Cassandra. She had spent so much of her childhood locked up and sunlight, wind, and clouds were a pleasure she never took for granted. Still, even the warmth could not distract her from Damian’s furrowed brows or the way he had folded his hands behind his back. Cassandra understood body language better than anyone on the planet. At first, it had infuriated Damian that she was more skilled than him at something, but he’d accepted that there were just some things he’d never be able to hide from his sister.

Compound was really too crude a word to describe the splendor of the sandstone palatial complex that dominated the southern shore of Al Ghul Island, but it was how Bruce had always referred to it and the name just kind of stuck. Damian looked out to the left and drank in the sight of palm trees swaying in the breeze over a sandy beach. The ocean beyond was a brilliant blue, sparkling in the midday light. Damian had sketched that ocean a million times, tried to capture its hue with paints, watercolors, pastels, and whatever else he could get his hands on. Still, no matter how many times he tried, Dick’s eyes matched the color of the water better than Damian ever had with his art supplies.

_Why can I not stop seeing those eyes?_ Damian thought, frustrated.

“What will you tell him?” Cassandra asked as they stepped out onto the second floor of a cool atrium.

“Everything. I have nothing to hide.”

Cassandra hummed, but Damian couldn’t tell what she meant by it. For as good as she was at reading him, Cassandra had always been a closed book when she wanted to be.

Assassins and guards and servants bowed respectfully as the two of them passed. Admittedly, they were an intimidating pair even if they didn’t recognize the son of the Demon’s Head and the Demon’s Head’s favored bodyguard. Cassandra wore her beautiful black and gold armor, a gift from her mother, and Damian wore his own League of Assassins armor, similar in many ways to hers, but for the blood red cape streaming from his shoulders.

They spent the next few minutes in silence, just the lightest padding of their feet as they stepped into their family’s quarters. Stephanie’s door was wide open, revealing a mess of clothes, armor, and half the contents of her clearly jostled desk littering her floor. Every other door was tightly closed and the two of them nodded to the guards who patrolled their family’s bedrooms. It was considered the highest honor for a home guard to be chosen to guard the Demon’s Head and his heirs. That was the only reason Damian could sleep easily at night.

Past the bedrooms were their studios, offices, library, and training rooms. Although they had been heading towards Bruce’s office at the end of the hall, they both turned automatically to the sliding shoji screens when they heard the unmistakable sounds of one of their siblings training.

Damian slid the door open and arched an eyebrow at the anarchy inside. Stephanie was pinned to the wall by her purple sleeves, dozens of needle thin knives holding her in place. Her hair was back in a messy ponytail and sweat glistened on her skin, proving that she had been training before she got pinned. An ugly yellow bruise was blooming on Timothy’s right cheek, but he otherwise looked unharmed as he stalked back and forth like a caged lion, twirling his bo staff in anticipation. Jason held his stance, a familiar scowl on his face that always appeared when a fight wasn’t going the way he wanted it to. Damian didn’t spot any marks on him, but it was likely his loose training clothes were hiding a plethora of bruises and scrapes. The practice sword that Damian had gifted him for his thirteenth birthday was pointed unwaveringly at Tim.

Damian leaned against the doorway as Cassandra went to go free Stephanie. “Does this happen every time I leave?” Damian drawled, arching an eyebrow at his little brothers.

To their credit, they didn’t startle or even look away from each other. Bruce had drilled it into their heads to take advantage of every opportunity they got in a fight and if either one of them took their eyes off their opponent, the other wouldn’t hesitate to strike.

“Hi, Dami,” Jason said. “How’s my stance?”

“Fine. Is there a reason you and Timothy are fighting?”

Both boys shrugged. Damian took that to mean they had either gotten on each other’s nerves and wanted to beat the shit out of the other or that they had gotten so bored that they needed to release some energy. The two were equally likely.

Stephanie wailed in melodramatic despair as she inspected her ruined sleeves. “Jay, when I said you could practice, I didn’t think you’d actually pin my sleeves. I thought you were just going to throw them next to me.”

Jason scoffed. “Anybody could throw them _next_ to you.”

“Yes, we’re all very impressed. If I were a shirt, I’d be shaking,” Timothy goaded, obviously trying to rile Jason into making the first move. It would never work on an adult, but judging by the way Jason’s face darkened, it was highly effective on teenage boys.

The girls walked out of the room, Stephanie complaining loudly and Cassandra nodding along considerately. Damian envied their ability to breeze in and out. As Bruce’s heir and the oldest of his children, it was his responsibility to make sure his brothers didn’t actually harm each other, which meant he had to stop their fight before it could escalate.

“While I’d normally love to stay and point out every mistake the two of you make, I need Timothy’s assistance,” Damian said before Jason could actually attack.

Jason scowled, but Timothy just looked contemplative. “Something come up with the Court?” the elder boy asked, leaning on his bo staff to signal to Jason that their fight would have to wait. Jason sheathed his practice sword and stalked out of the room, his footsteps loud and angry.

“I need you to find everything you can on a boy named Richard Grayson,” Damian said, ignoring Timothy’s question.

He nodded and stuck the bo staff back onto the rack next to Damian’s sleek black one. “Urgency?”

Was it urgent? It was, in a way. The Court finding their Gray Son and training him extensively to be their lead Talon was something that Bruce would need to know, but if he were honest, Damian’s reasons were far less altruistic than updating his father on a potential threat. There was no need to get into that with Timothy right now, though.

“Urgent,” Damian said. “I’m going to see Father now. You should come with. I don’t want to repeat the details later.”

Timothy nodded. “My laptop is already in his office.”

Bruce’s office was guarded by two more stoic faced home guards. The boys nodded in acknowledgement to both of them before pulling open the door and stepping into Bruce’s massive office.

Jason was animatedly gesturing as he recounted what had just gone down in the training room, complete with punching and kicking gestures. Stephanie had sprawled out in one of Bruce’s plush leather chairs and chimed in now and then while Cassandra draped herself on Bruce’s back, her arms wrapping around the front of his chest in a hug. Bruce himself sat behind his massive desk, one hand on Cassandra’s arm, and nodded along to Jason and Stephanie.

Timothy made a beeline for his desk situated to Bruce’s right and immediately started clacking away at the keys, white light from his screen illuminating half of his face. Damian had sketched that exact lighting effect on nearly every drawing he’d done of his little brother.

“You were practicing with your sword?” Bruce asked, interrupting Jason’s story.

Jason’s ears went red. “Did I say that?” he asked weakly.

Bruce sighed, but Damian knew his father well enough to know it was fond, not exasperated. Bruce could never get mad at his youngest child. Once, that had been Timothy, then Cassandra, and now it Jason. That particular immunity seemed to fade once they hit their mid teens, but Jason was only thirteen, so he had at least two more years before that would happen.

“Yes, you did. Jason, your swordsmanship is progressing wonderfully. You were supposed to be practicing with knives today.”

Jason made a face. “I like the sword more.”

“It’s fine to have a preference, Jaylad, but you need to be well rounded. Okay?” Bruce said patiently.

“Okay.”

Jason recognized that as his cue to step back. The boy sat down on top of Timothy’s desk carefully, not rocking it in the slightest. Timothy huffed loudly, but it was just as hollow as Bruce’s sigh. Jason could be annoying, but even he knew better than to jostle the desk while Timothy was working.

“Hello, Father,” Damian said simply as he took a seat in front of the desk. Behind Bruce, the glass doors had been opened to allow a warm breeze to sweep through the office. Patches of sunlight stretched across the length of the room and the silky curtains fluttered, like swaths of wriggling light.

The smallest hint of a smile tugged at Bruce’s lips. “Damian. I was beginning to think Cassie had left you behind in Gotham.”

“I considered,” Cassandra said, eliciting a snort from both Jason and Stephanie.

Damian ignored the hellions. “The mission was successful. Both targets were eliminated. Two of our assassins were injured, but none were killed. The Court suffered no losses and they took one of the young security guards from their target’s household back with them. They wouldn’t outright say, but I believe that they mean to make him a Talon.”

“Wonderful. Did the Court give you any trouble?”

“No. They were quite accommodating. Cassandra didn’t even have to maim anyone.”

Bruce tilted his head. “Sounds too easy. Were there any complications?”

Damian fisted his hands in his lap. “When I was at the Court, I got to witness how they train their Talon recruits.”

“The Court normally doesn’t allow outsiders to see their recruits,” Bruce said, his brow furrowed.

“I may have insisted that they take me to the Grandmaster immediately and he just happened to be watching the Talons train.” Damian could see from how his brow furrowed even further that he was resisting the urge to say that was also something that wasn’t normally done. Damian continued, “The Grandmaster was only watching one of them. Father, they have their Gray Son.”

Although everyone except for Tim had already been focused on his recount, all of their heads shot up at his last words. Cassandra let go of Bruce and sat down next to Stephanie as Bruce processed what he said, her every motion as graceful as the ballerinas she had trained with.

“Explain,” Bruce said finally.

“The Gray Son is a boy, about nine years old. When Cassandra and I saw them training, all of the owls and Cobb and the Grandmaster were just there to watch the boy. Father, he easily bested a Talon. Not one like Cobb, admittedly. The Talon was clearly newly reborn, but he was the only one of the recruits who could do that. Afterwards, the Grandmaster told me that he was Cobb’s great-grandson and later when I met the boy himself, he told me that his name is Dick Grayson and he thinks he’s about nine years old.”

Like Damian, Jason caught the uncertainty. “He thinks?” Jason repeated.

“The Court doesn’t let their recruits know how much time is passing,” Timothy explained, not looking up from his computer.

Bruce was frowning, although that in and of itself wasn’t out of the ordinary. “Tim, could you—”

“Damian already had me look him up,” Timothy said, his eyes scanning his screen wildly. “Richard Grayson is nine years old. His parents were famous trapeze artists with Haly’s Circus and the three of them had a family act called the Flying Graysons. Dick was homeschooled and the circus traveled around the whole world, so I can’t say much else about his life, but the big headline is that Dick’s parents died in Gotham last year. During a performance, the trapeze was sabotaged and the Graysons fell to their deaths. He had no next of kin, so Dick was put in juvy while social services tried to find a foster home for him. About a week after his parents’ death, Dick mysteriously disappeared from juvy. Commissioner Gordon personally investigated the Graysons’ death, but he hasn’t found any leads on who killed them and once Dick disappeared, he took over the investigation on him, but hasn’t found any leads on that either.”

Jason frowned. “So the Court killed his parents then kidnapped him?”

“Seems likely,” Timothy agreed.

“That sucks.”

Bruce shrugged. “You’re in the League of Assassins, Jason. Our family may have a policy against harming children or traumatizing them, but I don’t make my assassins follow that same code.”

“And B did steal all of us away from our parents,” Stephanie pointed out cheerfully. “Even Dami.”

“Father didn’t take me from Mother, Stephanie,” Damian said crossly.

“And I got emancipated first,” Timothy said, his tone mild as he kept scrolling.

Stephanie waved her hand wildly at them. “Semantics.”

Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose. “Can we focus on the Gray Son?”

“I’ll keep digging into his past,” Timothy said. “Aside from that, what else is there to do? The Court is a fortress and a maze. It’s not like we can do anything to the kid.”

Jason chimed in, “Yeah, what can we do, Dad? We don’t kill kids, we can’t take him because the owls have him, and he’s not even a Talon yet.”

Bruce nodded. “You’re right, Jaylad. But if he can already beat Talons at nine years old, he’s someone we’re going to need to keep and eye on going forward.”

“Tell him the rest,” Cassandra said, her eyes fixed on Damian.

Everyone’s heads swivelled towards Damian again at Cassandra’s words. He grimaced.

“You’re not going to like this,” Damian warned Bruce.

Bruce looked at him calmly. “Try me.”

“I want to rescue Dick from the Court of Owls.”


	3. Chapter 3

Their response was loud and immediate.

“Are you insane?” Stephanie exclaimed.

“Why?” Timothy asked, completely baffled as he looked up from his screen for the first time.

“Since when do you care about people?” Jason said bluntly.

Damian withstood it calmly, keeping his chin up and his eyes on his father’s face. His siblings could protest and argue all they like, but at the end of the day, only Bruce’s opinion mattered.

Bruce didn’t react at all to Damian’s words. He let his children squabble and jump to their feet and demand answers, but like his heir, he seemed content letting the storm roll over him as he studied Damian’s unyielding expression.

Timothy was undeterred by Damian’s silence. “Seriously, Dami, what possessed you to want _another_ murderous child? You complain every time Bruce brings one of us home.”

“It’s true,” Jason chimed in, being the most recent one to get that treatment.

Timothy waved his hand in his little brothers’ direction. “Exactly! And a Talon? You know the Court would never give him up, even if he weren’t also their precious Gray Son. It would ruin the alliance the League has with the Court.”

Bruce held up his hand, stopping the protests building in Stephanie, Jason, and Timothy. Stephanie glared at Bruce, clearly of the opinion that he should have laughed at Damian’s request and moved on. Timothy knit his brow, his eyes flickering back and forth from Damian and Bruce. Jason crossed his arms and huffed before jumping off of Timothy’s desk and claiming a seat near Stephanie and Cassandra. It was a good choice, strategically. His new angle gave him a better view of Bruce.

Bruce cocked his head, his grey eyes unreadable. “Do you understand what you’re asking me for?”

Damian inclined his head respectfully. “I do, Father. I’m asking for war.”

“Yes. A war fought over one child.”

Bruce’s tone was not neutral or harsh, but it wasn’t welcoming either. He was willing to hear Damian out, trusting that his heir was not being unreasonable and that there was some twist in this that would benefit the League, that Damian wasn’t being reckless over one child he’d only talked to for three measly minutes.

Damian wished he could prove his father right.

“I understand your apprehension. I know this sounds insane, I do.” Damian paused to collect himself, his hands fisting in the folds of his cape. All he could think about was how similar this felt to all the times his tutors had dragged him in front of his father after he’d skipped practice or done something potentially harmful to himself during training. “But whether you agree or not, I’m not leaving this alone. I can’t. He doesn’t deserve what’s happening to him. He’s just a child.”

“He is,” Bruce agreed. “And you know I have a soft spot for children—”

“Cough, orphans, cough cough,” Stephanie muttered, fake coughing into her elbow, coaxing a grin from Jason.

“—but he’s a child of the Court of Owls. Even if we do somehow manage to break him out, do you think his great-grandfather is just going to let us keep him?” Bruce persisted, ignoring Stephanie.

“I don’t plan to leave Cobb alive,” Damian said coolly.

Bruce looked at him sadly. “Dami, you may be among the best in the world, but Talons are nearly impossible to kill.”

“Which is why I’m asking for your help.”

Bruce sighed. “Why do you even want him? I’ve met Talon recruits. They’re basically violent drones.”

Damian thought of the mocking salute Dick had given Ryman and the way his lips curled as he muttered sarcastically under his breath and the way he held onto his ridiculous nickname even though they had only ever called him Gray Son. He thought of the dozens of unnecessary flips and rolls he’d done while fighting the Talon and the way he had seemed to soak up the owls’ gasps and shouts. He thought of the terrible optimism and fragile hope the boy had for his fellow recruits and for the chance to see Damian again. He thought of the bird-like boy who had been taken from center stage to an underground maze and had survived.

But all Damian could say through the lump in his throat was, “Not this one.”

Bruce looked at him thoughtfully, drumming his fingers on the desk. His siblings were mercifully quiet, sensing that this was the make or break moment. Damian swallowed and tried to straighten his back. Whatever Bruce said he would accept with dignity, as befit an al Ghul-Wayne.

“Is he still human?” Bruce asked finally.

Beautiful blue eyes that had been burned into his memory looked hopefully up at Damian. “Even more so than you and I,” Damian said evenly.

Bruce nodded, his brow furrowed. He drummed his fingers once more and said. “I hope you’re right, Damian. Tim, pull up everything we have on the League.”

…

Lightning crackled in the sky, highlighting every curl and twist of the dark storm clouds that had loomed over Gotham since time immemorial. The constant thrum of rain hitting the ground drowned out every normal city noise and turned Gotham’s dirty streets into rivers. Tonight, there would be no honking or tires screeching, no yelling or slamming of doors. There were no bar hoppers working their way through every shady establishment they could spot, no drug dealers working corners, no kids sitting in their fire escapes to get away from their parents. There were barely any cars, just the occasional red-blue watery glare of a police cruiser heading to some unfortunate person’s house, leaving ripples and tides in its wake. The city had drowned, and the League of Assassins descended on its corpse, as swift and silent as the shadows that embraced Gotham.

Damian tugged on his hood, keeping it in place even as the cold, wet wind tried to blow it off his head. He crouched down lower as he saw a light go on in one of the apartments across the street from where he was perched, but relaxed when he saw the curtains were drawn. Cassandra was absentmindedly twirling her knives next to him, completely unbothered by the rain. David Cain had put her through far worse than Gotham’s moody storms. Stephanie was a different matter. She kept a firm hand on her hood, the other pulling her cloak closer to her body to trap in the heat. She’d move as soon as the signal was given and fight as befit an honorary Wayne, but until then, she was just a freezing teenager.

The other assassins gathered on the roof with them and down below in the alleys resembled Stephanie more than Cassandra, but Damian knew that they would fight like their lives depended on it. After all, Bruce had never once called so many of his forces to one place at a time. They understood what that meant about the opposition they would face once inside the Court. They knew they weren’t all going to make it out of there alive.

Damian looked up. His goggles zoomed in automatically on the opposite rooftop. He caught a glimpse of Bruce’s jaw and Timothy’s bright red tunic and the hordes of silent assassins gathered behind them, but another blinding flash of lightning forced Damian to look away as his eyes readjusted.

“It’s time,” Bruce said, his voice coming through clearly on the comms despite the storm.

They moved as one. Damian leapt off the roof without hesitation, Cassandra and Stephanie flanking him. Hundreds of assassins plummeted around them, lining this street and the next and two surrounding. They shot out their grappling lines and swung down to the pavement below, right as the bomb they planted earlier exploded, a thunderbolt drowning out the sound and rain swallowing the flames. Lights flickered on in the apartments above them, but by the time those poor, ordinary people peeked out the windows, they were gone, cloaked in darkness and dropping down into the first level of the Court of Owls through the new smoking crater in the ground.

The assassins moved swiftly and silently, their feet padding lightly on the rain-slick floor of one of the back routes into the Court. They weren’t supposed to know about it, but before Father had adopted Timothy, the boy had spent a significant (and alarming) amount of time surveilling the Court, gangs, and kingpins in Gotham and brought everything he found with him to Al Ghul Island. There was a certain irony that two sons of Gotham’s oldest families, both of whom had been favored and scouted by the Court, would be its downfall.

The hallway was plain, but had a thick red carpet and crystal sconces lighting the way, showing that it led to the upper levels where the owls preyed and not to the bowels where the Talons lived in eternal twilight. Damian scowled. Timothy thought it would lead here, but Damian had still hoped that it went deeper, to where Dick would be. Just because there weren’t red lights and alarms blaring didn’t mean that the owls didn’t know they were in. They had probably known ever since they blew open the hidden entrance and were scrambling to respond.

First, the Talons would take the most important and favored owls to safety, all the way back to their mansions and penthouses, leaving the less fortunate to find their own way out. Bruce had posted assassins at every known entrance to the Court, but even with all of their spying and Bruce and Timothy’s extensive knowledge of Gotham, they hadn’t been able to find many. Some of those assassins would be breaking in from those entrances and others were to attack any escaping owls and Talons or to follow them back to their homes if their odds were abysmal. Normally, the League had a victory or death approach, but Bruce knew that they would be losing enough men that they couldn’t afford to start any fights they couldn’t win, no matter how backwards it might seem to some of his assassins.

Once the most important owls were safely away, the Grandmaster would send the Talons and maybe even some of the recruits up to meet the invading assassins. _Cobb will be leading that charge,_ Damian thought as the hallway branched into two. _He wants to kill my family himself, especially Father, but I won’t give him the chance. The second Cobb shows his face, I’ll stick my sword through his chest and then hack off his head._

“Go right,” Bruce ordered him shortly before leading Timothy and his troops down the left hallway.

“You heard him,” Damian snapped at his men.

Damian charged down the hallway, keeping an eye out for any security measures the Court might have taken. As they kept following the twists and turns, the halls started to get fancier. Portraits and paintings and tapestries lined the walls and vases and urns stood proudly in lighted nooks. Damian had no clue where he was at relative to the rest of the Court and he was sure that Bruce was in an entirely different section of the compound by now, but he didn’t stop. He had one goal here and nothing, not Cobb or the goddamn labyrinth that was the Court, was going to get in his way.

Damian nearly bumped straight into a group of fleeing owls when he rounded a blind corner, but he recovered quickly. One quick thrust of his sword and the woman in the front was dead. Stephanie and Cassandra took care of the men flanking her. The last two took off running, both screaming and crying. Damian pointed to two of the assassins behind him and gestured them forward with a flick of his wrist. They darted forward silently, their blades drawn. The owls were dead before they even made it out of sight.

“Tt,” Damian sneered as he stepped over their corpses.

Damian’s head shot up as he heard voices up ahead. He looked back at the men behind him. They had knives and swords and guns already in their hands, their bodies tensed and coiled, ready for whatever came next. _Good_ , Damian thought. _Some of you might even make it out of here alive._

Damian charged forward, throwing open the door to let his assassins pour in. Damian threw a dagger at the first hint of movement. The Talon hardly jerked even as the shining blade buried itself into his shoulder, his eyes dead and gold.

Damian felt a chill run down his spine. They weren’t just in any old room; they had found the speakeasy. If it weren’t for the line of pale yellow light that ran under the length of the bar counter, Damian wouldn’t have recognized where he was. He had no difficulty spotting the five Talons that stood across the room from them, though, or their pissed off expressions as they looked between the dagger in the middle Talon’s shoulder and Damian himself. Their eyes glowed in the half darkness like a nocturnal creature’s.

The Talon cocked his head, not making any move to dislodge the dagger. “Damian al Ghul-Wayne. The Court of Owls has sentenced you to die.”

Faster than the eye could see, the Talon ripped out the dagger, whipped around, and _hurled_ it back at Damian.


	4. Chapter 4

“We need to keep going,” Damian growled as he deflected another Talon’s blow.

“We need to get them off our backs first,” Stephanie managed to say between gasping breaths.

Stephanie barely managed to twist enough so that the Talon’s dagger scraped against her armor and not her throat. Cassandra shoved the Talon hard, giving Stephanie an opening to slice his throat. Dark blood spurted out, landing on the girls’ wet hoods. A few drops landed on Stephanie's face, scattered like freckles.

Stephanie bared her teeth at the Talon’s corpse. “Fucker.”

Damian locked blades with his Talon, bracing his feet against the bar behind him. His arms trembled as the full, inhuman strength of a Talon bore down on him. Damian shoved and twisted his sword, disarming the Talon. He barely had time to widen his unnatural eyes before Damian took off his head with a two handed swing of his sword.

“You,” Damian said, pointing to the tailend of his troop who had only just come into the speakeasy. “Come with me.”

Cassandra and Stephanie grabbed their own groups, leaving just about twenty of their troop behind to deal with the remaining Talon and to burn the bodies. The last thing they needed was for the Talons to regenerate while the League was still in the Court.

“I know where we are now,” Damian said shortly as the girls once again fell in step with him. “If we keep going this way and then down a level, we’ll reach the Talon barracks.”

Cassandra nodded. “You remember the code?”

“Of course. Those idiots made no attempt to hide it from us.”

“Code?” Stephanie asked.

“The code to the Talon training room,” he elaborated. “It leads to the barracks.”

“That doesn’t mean your baby Talon will be there. Cobb could have grabbed him and ran,” Stephanie argued, but followed Damian nonetheless.

“It’s a possibility,” Damian allowed. “But I don’t think it’s likely. The Court is arrogant, the Grandmaster and Cobb even more so. They won’t expect us to get that far.”

They rounded a familiar corner, but they weren’t the first ones to reach it. The shattered remains of owls masks and thick streaks of blood littered the once pristine carpet. The bodies of the owls themselves had been shoved to the side of the hall, stacked on top of each other hurriedly to allow the assassins to pass. Damian knelt down next to one of the bodies, an elderly owl dressed in a spectacular silver dress, and inspected the knife in her torso.

“It seems Father and Timothy came this way already,” Damian said, showing the bat engraving on the handle of the knife to Stephanie and Cassandra.

Stephanie snorted. “Figures that we’d manage to run into them in this maze.”

“Keep going. Double time,” Damian ordered. The assassins nodded sharply and followed his lead.

It only took one more minute to reach the door to the mezzanine and another few seconds for Damian to type in the code. Cassandra charged in first, her sword held high. Damian entered last, his eyes darting around while Stephanie covered his side.

The corpses of assassins and Talons dotted the mezzanine, their bodies bloody and broken. Stephanie made a face at them. She was a killer, same as the rest of them, but this was different. This wasn’t a clean mission with a clear target. This was war, and that meant more blood and more bodies than even a girl who had been taken in by the Demon’s Head had seen. _This is even more than_ I’ve _seen_ , Damian admitted to himself.

The loud telltale clanging of swords and knives and shields rang through the training room, stirring Damian to action. “Stay close and follow me,” he barked, readying his katana.

Damian charged down the stairs those insipid owls had once used to take him to the Grandmaster, the sounds of battle luring him forward. His pulse was racing, adrenaline coursing through his veins with every breath. It was one thing to walk through silent halls and now the enemy could be anywhere. It was another entirely to know that the second he set foot on the training room floor, enemies would lunge for his throat. _Better the known than the unknown_ , he tried to tell himself, but his pulse didn’t seem to agree.

Damian bent backwards, narrowly avoiding the edge of the sword swinging only inches above his face. One of his feet was still on the last step. Damian lunged forward and rolled, letting Cassandra get in the Talon’s face before creeping up from the back and stabbing the Talon in the neck. The Talon roared, staggering away. His assassins poured out the stairwell and descended on the Talon like vultures picking at carrion, knives flashing silver in the bloody light of the training room.

They’d stepped into a bloodbath. Even more bodies lay limply on the floor here than on the mezzanine above, making it hard for the survivors to hold their ground as the fight raged on. The assassins only narrowly outnumbered the Talons in the room until Damian’s forces streamed in, spreading out like they’d been taught to do.

“Duck,” Timothy yelled.

Cassandra, Stephanie, and Damian all ducked together, trusting him implicitly. Another Talon, a slim woman with a profusely bleeding slash on her face from chin to forehead, rolled away from them to avoid Timothy’s knives. Bruce came flying past them, his heavy black cape flaring out behind him, and bowled into the Talon. His momentum sent them crashing into the ground. As they grappled, Stephanie and Timothy grasped arms and smiled weakly at each other, both winded.

“Good to see you guys,” Timothy said. He turned to the side abruptly and spat out blood.

“Are you alright?” Damian asked, worried. It was equally likely that he had bitten the inside of his cheek or had internal bleeding. If it was the former, he was fine, but if it was the latter, he would have the girls carry him back up to the surface and get him to a hospital immediately.

Timothy waved his hand dismissively. “I’m fine. Bruce has barely been letting me fight honestly. Have you found the kid?”

Damian clenched his jaw. “Not yet.”

Timothy nodded. “Bruce and I are pinned down here, but the three of you can keep moving if you don’t think you’ll need backup.”

“We won’t. The Court will be trying to guard the owls and their databanks, not their recruits.” At least, that was what Damian was betting on.

“Then leave your assassins here with us. Talons keep pouring in. I think this room serves as a crossroads for the lower levels.”

“You should come with us,” Stephanie said. Damian could see the worry in her eyes.

Timothy shook his head. “B needs someone to watch his back.”

Damian knocked into his shoulder gently. “Give them hell, brother.”

Despite all the gore around them, he smiled and promised, his expression painfully earnest, “I will, Dami.”

…

Damian raced down the hall, the sounds of death echoing in his ears from the battle they’d just fled. There was no blood or broken masks and bodies to be found here, just sterile walls and emergency flood lights. After all, they weren’t supposed to have made it this far.

The girls were hot on his heels, swords unsheathed and eyes constantly roaming the walls, checking for traps. Damian didn’t go where the Talon named Ryman had once taken him. Dick wouldn’t be in the gym during the invasion. No, he’d be in his barracks, whatever that looked like for a boy soldier.

Damian stopped at the end of the hall. The door there was unmarked and plain, just like every other one they’d passed, but something about it made him pause. He crouched down and looked at the handle. There was a different kind of lock on this door than the others, one that locked only from the outside. He looked up at the wall opposite the door and spotted the dark, reflective lenses near the ceiling. There were cameras trained specifically on this door and nowhere else.

“This is it,” Damian said, his eyes fixed on the lock.

Cassandra asked, “Are you sure?”

“Not at all,” he admitted. “But I have a feeling. Stay out here and guard my back, even if he attacks.”

“He won’t,” Cassandra said confidently. “He liked you.”

“He’s also being slowly brainwashed by the Court of Owls. I’m preparing for the worst case scenario,” Damian said before reaching for the handle.

Two Talons slammed into the wall at the far end of the hall. _Someone shoved them out of the training room_ , Damian deduced. They were about to charge back in, but one of them spotted them. He grabbed his partner’s arm and pointed in their direction. The two Talons started running towards them.

Damian paused, his hand on the handle. “Can you two handle them?”

Cassandra tilted her head. “They are hurt.”

“Then we can totally take them! Go get your kid, Dami. We got this,” Stephanie said, spinning around her sword dramatically.

“Try to shove them back into the training room,” he advised.

The girls either didn’t hear him or chose to ignore him. As they locked swords with the Talons, Damian opened the door.

…

Damian hovered in the doorway, his eyes flicking around the room, but it was hard to make out anything. The room itself was pitch black with the red light pouring in from the hall being the only source of illumination, and that was diminished by his shadow. A bed rested against the far wall and a sink and toilet stood at the foot of it, but that was all the dismal cell held. Damian’s heart sank. _Did I choose the wrong room?_

The bed was unmade, Damian noted, and even as he watched it, the blanket was slowly collapsing downwards from its arch where it looked like someone had just been laying. But if the occupant wasn’t in eyesight and couldn’t fit behind the door, that meant—

Damian barely had time to lunge backwards as a lithe figure dropped down from above the door frame. Dick landed in a crouch, one hand braced on the floor in front of him. Shaggy black hair hid his eyes, but Damian saw how his teeth were bared. There was something distinctly unhinged about how Dick was moving and glaring as he frantically scanned the hall for anyone else nearby, but Damian didn’t blame him. All Dick knew was that the Court was under attack and that someone not wearing an owl or Talon mask had come to his room. If he’d been a prisoner of the Court for as long as Dick had, he would have been just as scared.

“Dick, it’s me,” Damian said, holding his hands up in surrender, his sword hanging from his right hand, the tip pointing to the ground.

Dick paused in the doorway, his eyes flickering too fast to follow. All he had on was a loose white shirt and white pants, revealing the ugly green and purple bruises around his shoulders and neck that looked suspiciously like handprints. Dark bags of another kind shadowed Dick’s eyes, marking sleepless nights.

Damian swallowed the rage that rose in him at the sight of what the Court would do to a _child_ and forced himself to keep talking. “I’m Damian al Ghul-Wayne. We met just two weeks ago. Do you remember?”

Dick’s stance relaxed minutely, his hand drawing off the ground. “You were the one who stopped Ryman,” Dick said slowly, as if he had to pull up the memory from the depths of his mind. His voice was scratchy, but still high pitched like all boys who hadn’t hit puberty yet. “You asked me what my name was.”

Damian’s heart stuttered. His name. Damian hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, but for a boy who was slowly being stripped of his identity, already torn from his family, and transformed into something else, that simple question would have meant everything to him.

“I did,” Damian said, his voice only shaking slightly. “Dick, my family is here. We’re here, and we’re fighting the Court.”

Dick shook his head fiercely, slowly drawing back into his cell. “You can’t fight the Court. They always win. They do. That’s what they said, that’s what they told me.”

Dick’s voice took on an edge of hysteria. Damian swallowed and crouched down, laying his sword on the ground beside him. The less threatening he looked, the better.

“Dick, I want you to come with me,” Damian said. “I want to get you out of here”

“You’re just a test like the others. I won’t fall for it, not like last time,” Dick said, scrambling backwards until his back hit the bed frame, his head tilted down as if he couldn’t even bear to look at Damian.

Damian was starting to panic. He would knock Dick out and carry his unconscious body out if he had to, but with how crazed he was at the moment, he was afraid he’d hurt Dick more than he needed to if it came to a fight.

“Please, this isn’t a test or a trick,” Damian said desperately. “We really are here fighting the Court. Just down the hall and you’ll see two of my partners. They just fought those Talons, Dick, and they won, just like you did when I saw you train.”

Dick shook his head. “I fight when they tell me to, that’s it. I won’t—”

“I’m not asking you to fight,” Damian said hastily. “I swear. I would never make you fight. I just want to get you out of here. Don’t you want to leave?”

Dick had wrapped his arms around himself so tightly that Damian worried he’d bruise himself or that the blunt crescents of his fingernails would draw blood, but as quickly as he had run away, Dick darted forward. Damian stayed where he was as Dick hugged the door frame, peeking out to watch as Cassandra and Stephanie finished off their second Talon and then pulled out their small bottles of gasoline and lighters.

“Those girls beat the Talons?” Dick asked, his voice very small.

“They did. Do you remember Cassandra? She was the girl that came with me when we met.”

Dick shook his head, but it wasn’t hysterical this time, just a simple _no_. Dick’s eyes were fixed on them as the girls started to burn the Talons’ bodies.

“You’re really fighting the Court?”

“We are.”

Red light danced on Dick’s dark hair like the flames dancing on the Talons. “And you’re gonna get me out of here?” Dick whispered, as if he was afraid someone would hear him.

“You have my word,” Damian said solemnly.

Dick fidgeted, his feet scuffing up against the doorframe. It wasn’t until the girls darted back into the training room that he let go of it and stood up straight, his chin tilting up to meet Damian’s eyes even though he was still crouched down.

Damian’s breath hitched as he finally saw Dick’s eyes unobstructed. Even the red lights couldn’t disguise the streaks of fractured gold that had formed in Dick’s once perfectly blue eyes. Damian had come too late to spare Dick from the beginning of the Talon transformation.

“Take me out of here,” Dick begged, tears welling in his inhuman eyes.

Damian scooped Dick up into his arms without hesitation. Dick curled up, wrapping his arms around Damian’s neck and pressing his face tightly into Damian’s shoulder. Damian felt a stab of guilt that the blood that coated his armor would no doubt smear onto Dick’s hair and face, but instead of worrying about that, he rested one hand reassuringly against Dick’s back, the way Bruce used to do for him when he was Dick’s age.

Gold eyes or not, he had come here to rescue Dick and even though every bone in his body was screaming at him to find all the sonuvabitches who had done this to him, Damian walked forward calmly, careful not to jostle Dick.

Damian walked past the burning corpses and ignored the odious smell and the way the smoke made his eyes tear up. He walked past assassins and Talons locked in deadly combat and more corpses than he could count, though thankfully none that he recognized. He walked past Timothy, who was slumped against the wall, his face even bloodier than before, and Stephanie and Cassandra who were pouring more gasoline onto bodies. They all knew that they would miss a few as some would heal faster than they could be burned, but they would do their best.

Damian walked up the stairs and ignored the voice in his head that screamed he hadn’t seen his father down there and demanded that he check on him. He walked up the stairs and ordered the two of the assassins who were on lookout on the mezzanine to flank him. He walked, never stopping, never faltering, as Dick clung to him desperately. Some of his quiet tears spilled onto Damian’s neck, and he swore that this wouldn’t be the end. The Court would burn tonight, but Damian knew it wasn’t the end. There would be survivors, like the Grandmaster and Cobb, who would root through the ashes and start rebuilding, and one day, when they were ready, they would want their Gray Son back.

The son of the Demon’s Head walked and walked until the cold rain of a Gotham storm kissed his face and the half-Talon looked up from his arms and laughed as he saw the sky for the first time in a year.

**Author's Note:**

> I've gotten a lot of questions about whether there will be more chapters or a sequel and yes, there definitely will be. Fractured Eyes is the first work in a series I'm planning called Batfamily: League of Assassins. I'm working on the sequel right now, but it's not quite ready to publish yet. I'm hoping to get the next work in the series up within a month so keep an eye out for it and thank you for all your support!


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